(01-02-2018, 04:02 PM)Perkolater Wrote:

(01-02-2018, 03:56 PM)mikesez Wrote: Even if I take this computation at face value, it says right there that it excludes the bowl games. What's the FPI of each team now, I wonder?
If one stat like this can change a lot week to week, is it a useful stat?

I left the bowl games out because we were discussing why UCF didn't get into the playoff which would not have included bowl game stats.

OK then, excluding the bowl game does make sense.
So the next thing I would ask is, how does the FPI account for the fact that a lot of these lower conference teams do not play each other?  Don't you have to start with the assumption that some teams or conferences are bad while some are good?  ESPN does not seem to explain this.  To me it does not seem mathematically possible to establish which team is best without either starting from unprovable postulates, or having the entire season play out as a playoff that produces a single undefeated team.

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